The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

De: Edgar Allan Poe

Narrado por: Peter Noble

Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is a pivotal work in which Poe calls attention to the act of writing and to the problem of representing the truth.

This rousing sea adventure follows New England boy Pym, who stows away on a whaling ship with its captain’s son, Augustus. The two boys repeatedly find themselves on the brink of death or discovery and witness many terrifying events, including mutiny, cannibalism and frantic pursuits. Poe imbued this deliberately popular tale with such allegorical richness, biblical imagery and psychological insights that the tale has come to influence writers as various as Melville, James, Verne and Nabokov.

Public Domain (P)2021 SNR Audio

The ending was classic

I like the way he writes. vocabulary and thought processes. Everything is very well explained

"Something Ever More About to Be" (mild spoilers)

I am a fan of Poe's short stories and so was curious to listen to his novel. As a surface adventure account, it started somewhat drily, but once the action got going in earnest, I was hooked. While listening I thought of Moby-Dick, Huck Finn, and Blood Meridian (there are some truly ghastly events), but the closest heirs perhaps would be the heroes of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. Dirk Peters could stand shoulder-to-shoulder (well, not literally) with Conan.

I figured more was going on beneath the surface of the narrative, but not being clever enough to have spotted many of the clues myself, I happily resorted to some of the critical literature afterward to lessen my ignorance.

The reader does a fine job.

‚very silly little book’…

I like Poe stories, but for this his only novel, I have to agree with the authors own assessment that it is a very silly little book. It starts well with a coming of age sea story. But suddenly turns into a travel log with entire chapters describing nothing but various seabirds and geography of some islands without narrative at all. The last part is truly silly indeed. Some mystical descent in Antarctica. It was hard to finish even on double speed. Nothing happening. The pedantic over-explaining was hard to stomach. Also the what amounts to basically murder of various ‘savages’, ‘idiotic natives’, and ‘primitives’… apparently Poe had to write a longer narrative for his publisher to get some money. I am not sure, if he was simply incapable of sustaining a longer narrative or just bored to bits having to deliver it….either way, a waste of time. Narrator does a good job, but that patient was dead on arrival.